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This weekly thread will focus on the phrase “The Cruelty Is The Point”, which may take some explanation.

Frequently on Lemmy (and elsewhere), I see the phrase in comment threads. In my experience, it has been referencing any policy that is contrary to a Liberal or Leftist belief that the thread discusses. I have found the phrase when discussing trans issues, housing, taxes, healthcare, abortion, and many more.

This does not mean it doesn’t exist elsewhere, it is simply where I see it since I spend much of my social media time on Lemmy. If your experience differs, please let us know!

Some Starters (and don’t feel you have to speak on all or any of them if you don’t care to):

  • Do you believe this? If so, why?
  • Is it true / false in some or all scenarios?
  • Is it with certain groups or regarding certain things?
  • Do you feel that speech like this is conducive to fixing societal issues?
  • Is what is considered “kind” always the best course of action?
  • 🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦MEnglish
    1•16 days ago

    There’s a key word: invariably. It’s a staggering coincidence that EVERY FUCKING TIME the policies hit visible minorities, women, and the LGBTQ+ community.

    EVERY FUCKING TIME.

    If I picked up a gun and pretended to fire randomly and happened to hit a bullseye each time you’d likely suspect I’m aiming for the bullseye. Yet for some reason when the bullet hits visible minorities, women, and the LGBTQ+ community EVERY FUCKING TIME you think it’s firing randomly.

    That’s my point.

    This is not an accident. After literally hundreds of times the bullet hitting the bullseye you still think the aim wasn’t to hit that bullseye. Because you aren’t the target. You can afford to pretend it’s all happenstance and a side effect of some other factor, treating this as a harmless little intellectual exercise. But those of us with that bullseye painted on us? We can’t afford that shit. Because the bullets keep ripping into us left, right, and centre while, mysteriously, the white, middle class left in particular pretends there’s nothing to see here. (And the right just continues being the blind man shooting at the world … and somehow having the bullets repeatedly strike the body politic of visible minorities, women, and the LGBQT+ community.)

    The cruelty is very much the point. The cruelty is how they intend to control those they don’t approve of. You just can’t see it because you’re not the target of it.

    And I’m out of this conversation. I’m oh-so-fucking-weary of talking to the dispassionate observers tut-tutting from the sideline.